IT has been related to me, O happy King, said Shahrazad, that there was a certain merchant who had great wealth, and traded extensively with surrounding countries; and one day he mounted his horse, and journeyed to a neighbouring country to collect what was due to him, and, the heat oppressing him, he sat under a tree, in a garden, and put his hand into his saddle-bag, and ate a morsel of bread and a date which were among his provisions. Having eaten the date, he threw aside the stone, and immediately there appeared before him an ‘Efrit, of enormous height, who, holding a drawn sword in his hand, approached him, and said, Rise, that I may kill thee, as thou hast killed my son. the merchant asked him, How have I killed thy son? He answered, When thou atest the date, and threwest aside the stone, it struck my son upon the chest, and, as fate had decreed against him, he instantly died.

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LIST of STORIES:
Volume 1
* Story Of King Shahryar and His Brother
o Tale of the Bull and the Ass (Told by the Wazir)
o Tale of the Trader and the Jinni (1)
+ The First Shaykh’s Story (2)
+ The Second Shaykh’s Story
+ The Third Shaykh’s Story (3)
o The Fisherman and the Jinni (4)
+ Tale of the Wazir and [...]

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IN days of yore and in times and tides long gone before, there dwelt in a certain town of Persia two brothers, one named Kasim and the other Ali Baba, who at their father’s demise had divided the little wealth he had left to them with equitable division, and had lost no time in wasting and spending it all. The elder, however, presently took to himself a wife, the daughter of an opulent merchant, so that when his father-in-law fared to the mercy of Almighty Allah, he became owner of a large shop filled with rare goods and costly wares and of a storehouse stocked with precious stuffs, likewise of much gold that was buried in the ground. Thus was he known throughout the city as a substantial man. But the woman whom Ali Baba had married was poor and needy. They lived, therefore, in a mean hovel, and Ali Baba eked out a scanty livelihood by the sale of fuel which he daily collected in the jungle and carried about the town to the bazaar upon his three asses..

translated by Sir Richard Burton in 1850

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Mi è venuto in mente, o re felice, che nel tempo dei tempi, in una città della Persia, vivevano due fratelli, che si chiamavano uno Qassim e l’altro Alì Babà. Quando il padre di costoro, che era un uomo di modeste risorse, fu passato nella misericordia del Signore, i due fratelli procedettero a dividersi equamente i magri beni lasciati dal genitore. Certo l’eredità non migliorò di molto la condizione dei due fratelli, perché i beni lasciati dal padre erano ben poca cosa. Ma Qassim ebbe la fortuna di conoscere un giorno una mezzana, la quale, dopo avere sperimentato su di se e con piena soddisfazione le gagliarde virtù di copulatore del giovanotto, gli combinò un matrimonio con una ragazza piacevole di aspetto e per giunta – benedetto sia Colui che distribuisce! – provvista di beni di fortuna e padrona di una bottega fornita di ogni mercanzia, così che Qassim diventò dall’oggi al domani un uomo agiato, anzi, uno dei più ricchi mercanti della città e poté fare a meno di preoccuparsi dell’avvenire. Lo stesso non si poteva dire dell’altro fratello, Alì Babà..

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One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎ Kitāb ‘alf layla wa-layla; Persian: هزار و یک شب Hezār-o yek šab) is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English language edition (1706), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment.

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Le mille e una notte (in lingua araba كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة Kitāb Alf Layla wa-Layla, in lingua persiana هزار و یک شب Hezār-o Yek Šab); è una ricca raccolta di novelle orientali, di varia ambientazione storico-geografica e di differenti autori. è centrata sul re persiano Shāhrīyār, che, essendo stato tradito da una delle sue mogli, ha deciso di uccidere sistematicamente le sue spose al termine della prima notte di nozze. La bella Sharāzād, andata in sposa al re, escogita un trucco per salvarsi: ogni sera racconta al re una storia, rimandando il finale al giorno dopo.

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